Originally Posted by
Olympic Fan
Just to be clear, I don't think the story of Sam Gilbert and his influence over UCLA was exactly kept under wraps until his death.
Jerry Tarkanien was publically complaning about Gilbert in 1971, when he was battling the NCAA. Gene Bartow, who succeeded Wooden, was widely quoted as saying that he feared for his life if he tried to testify against Gilbert (he later "clarified" the quote, but in view of the later evidence that emerged that Gilbert was laundering drug money for the mob, Bartow may have been right). Gilbert's long influence on UCLA basketball was exposed by the NCAA when they slammed Larry Brown's version of the program in 1980. Heck, Time Magazine did a long expose on Gilbert and his influence in 1994.
This is nothing new -- and the long exposure has done little to taint Wooden's legacy ... and it shouldn't.
There needs to be perspective here.
Sometimes people have trouble understanding degrees of guilt. Just an example -- the USA had concentration camps for Japanese-Americans in WWII. The Nazis had concentration camps for Jews, Communists. gays and gypsies. As the two morally equivilent as some US critics have claimed? Absolutely not ... but just because the American concentration camps weren't anywhere near the blotch on human history that the Nazi camps proved to be, doesn't mean that they aren't a stain on our history. We can condemn the mistake of our forefathers without the hyperbole of comparing it to the Nazis.
John Wooden's program was aided by Sam Gilbert's illegal largess.
Should we condemn that? Yes ... but to then go and link Wooden to serial cheaters such as Jerry Tarkanien, Eddie Sutton and John Calipari is the intellectual equivilent of equating Manzinar to Dachau.
Just to keep this story in perspective:
(1) Wooden never worked with Gilbert, never used him to recruit or help his players and, in fact, made several (unsuccessful) efforts to keep him away from his players.
(2) Gilbert was a jocksniffer who first became involved AFTER UCLA became great ... he was not the reason Wooden first won. His first contact with UCLA players occurred during the 1967-67 season (after Wooden had his first two titles and had recruited Alcindor and company, who would win three more).
(3) No player has ever testified (or evidence emerged) that Gilbert ever influenced a recruit to attend UCLA. His violations were gifts to players already on campus (who may, to be fair, have told prospective recruits, if you come, you'll be taken care of).
(4) Almost every big-time program has sugar daddies. Remember Rick Robey and his racehorse? The $100 handshake is notorious. I'd like to think that Duke was above that and I hope it is today -- but I know when Gene Banks and Kenny Dennard were around, they ate free at a popular restaurant near campus. I also know of an Italian place in Chapel Hill that fed Dean's boys for free for years.
Again, not equating those episodes or the more normal booster gifts with what Gilbert did -- his was worse by a large degree ... but only by degree.
So what does that make Wooden?
A great coach whose honor and dignity was respected by almost everyone who knew him -- and most of those knew about Sam Gilbert.
John Wooden was not a saint and did not run a perfect program, but he was not a cheat and UCLA's dynasty was not built on Sam Gilbert's illegal gifts.
Gilbert is a small, distasteful footnote in John Wooden's life story, not a major chapter and it's a shame that in the hours and days of his death that detractors would try to use it to smear his memory.